Iowa judge sues, says firing was political retaliation
Source: Omaha World Herald-AP
DES MOINES (AP) — Iowa Workforce Development Director Teresa Wahlert sought to favor employers over workers in unemployment benefits decisions, and then fired the department's chief judge when he opposed her efforts, according to allegations in a lawsuit filed Thursday.
The lawsuit filed by Joseph Walsh alleges that Wahlert illegally stripped him of job protections as chief administrative law judge of the unemployment appeals bureau, and then laid off both him and his wife after he told Wahlert not to influence the work of judges who are supposed to be independent.
The lawsuit says Walsh's layoff “was a thinly disguised means of hiding the motive for terminating him: the fact that Walsh had stood up to efforts to bully and control him and other judges as a means of pursuing an anti-employee agenda,” including complaints to the U.S. Department of Labor.
Walsh said Thursday that he did not want to file the lawsuit and that he knows it will cause people to become concerned about the administrative judicial process at Iowa Workforce Development.
FULL story at link.
Read more: http://www.omaha.com/article/20140404/NEWS/140409446/1707#iowa-judge-says-firing-was-political-retaliation
War on workers continues.
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